I have a confession to make. I like microsites. Not as in, our company has 500 different disconnected sites for every promotion and product. As in, we have built an online experience that can change your mind about who we are, that’s either something you haven’t seen before, or something done better than you’ve seen before, or both. The kind of thing you’d seek out and share with your friends.

Most dotcom sites are simply not designed or developed on the back end to accommodate this kind of thing. Does that mean we give up on the idea that the web can do more than help people achieve rational goals like research or reading news or putting something in a shopping cart?

I think the microsite hate we’ve seen over the last few years was mostly well founded. There was a lot of clutter and a lot of money being spent on nonsense. That said, I really don’t understand why the online ecosystem of a big brand can’t include a few super groovy entertaining brand experiences that blow people’s minds.

As long as the number of microsites is kept within reason, why exactly shouldn’t brands build them? The Internet has this awesome feature called a hyperlink. As long is there is a clearly marked way to get back and forth between dotcom and branded experiences, what is the problem?